


It's Just A Name (It's So Much More)

by broodywolf



Series: Worth Fighting For [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broodywolf/pseuds/broodywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen waits by Alyx's bedside when she's wounded after the attack on Haven. Alyx doesn't trust easily, she can't, but she is forced to admit to herself that she may have been wrong about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Just A Name (It's So Much More)

The first thing Alyx was aware of was a stabbing pain in her shoulder. She ached all over, but this was… fuck, that hurt. Did she get mauled by a bear or something?

No. The celebration after the breach was closed. Red Templars. Corypheus. _Shit, did everyone else even make it out? Was he still out there?_ Her heart began to race, and her eyes shot open. She was looking up at the canvas of a tent, lying on a cot. She couldn't remember getting there. She could see Inquisition soldiers outside, though, and the healer bustling around the tent was familiar.

"You're awake!"

She twisted her head around on the pillow to find the source of the voice. Ow. Movement, apparently, was bad.

Commander Cullen was in a chair by the head of her cot. There were deep circles under his eyes, and his usual scruff was approaching becoming a full beard.

"You look awful, Commander. You know, being in proximity of a sleeping person doesn't actually count as _sleep_." She tried for a teasing grin, but the motion tugged painfully at her cheek. Was her whole fucking body bruised?

The corner of his lips twitched up in a weak attempt to return her smile, but then he frowned slightly, turning away.

"How long was I out?" she groaned, needing but not really wanting to know the answer.

"A few days. You woke a few times, but you were feverish. The healers said you probably wouldn't remember." He spoke gently, looking at her like… no, she must still be feverish, he couldn't be looking at her like that.

"A few days? And you, what, decided to try your hand at playing sick nurse? Am I going to find one of our healers commanding the troops?" She joked, trying to dispel the strange tension that had fallen over them. Her slight chuckle at her own poor attempt at humor quickly morphed into a wheezing cough, which sent pain shooting through her shoulder and her chest with each breath. _Broken ribs,_ she thought, _just fucking wonderful_.

Finally the cough subsided, and she shut her eyes for a moment to compose herself as the pain receded. When she opened them, he was looking at her like _that_ again, pain and something else she wasn't ready to think about written in his eyes. She had to be imagining it, she thought, there was no way… but then she remembered the look he'd given her as she turned to leave the Chantry the last time. She had already been taken aback by his compassion and his determination to get everyone he could safely from Haven, that alone went against everything she'd learned to expect from a templar, but when she'd resolved to be the diversion necessary to make that happen, to sacrifice herself if it meant saving the people of the Inquisition, he'd looked at her like… well, like he was looking at her now. Like she was something extraordinary, like… like he couldn't bear to lose her. Alyx wasn't quite ready to process that information. He was a templar, for crying out loud! It was impossible. Whatever the healers had given her to ease the pain must have been messing with her head.

"Herald, I… _Maker_ , I thought you were dead, and it was my fault and I… I _can't_ -" He broke off, looking away with his brow furrowed deeply.

"Not to worry, Commander," she smiled wryly, "You aren't getting rid of me that easily." She was deflecting, and he knew it, his mouth opening slightly as though to protest her insistence on making light of serious things, but then he sighed, smiling softly at her.

"Cullen," he murmured.

"What?"

"Call me Cullen. Please," he said.

She stared for probably a bit too long as her mouth worked soundlessly, hanging open. _It's just a name, Alyx, pull yourself together._

"Cullen," she breathed. A brilliant smile spread slowly across his face, which she couldn't help but return. That smile was… that smile was like sunrise, and chocolate chip cookies. It was warmth itself, and joy, and Alyx swore she regained a little bit of feeling in her frostbitten toes as that warmth hit her. She wanted to make it her mission in life to get him to smile like that as often as possible.

 _Oh, shit_.

"Um, I should… I need to see what the situation is. Three days, you know." Had she really just compared his smile to chocolate chip cookies? What was she doing?

"You need to rest, Herald. I'll go fetch Josephine and Leliana," he said, gently but insistently, and rose to his feet. He turned to leave the tent. Which was probably for the best, but then Alyx apparently lost control of her mouth because she was opening it and then—

"Cullen?"

"Yes, Herald?"

She paused, and then blundered on against her better judgment.

"Call me Alyx," she said, slightly breathless. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , she told herself, but then he was smiling at her like that again and surely one had to be good at heart to smile with such warmth, right? Maybe she had been wrong about him. Maybe…

__He was still a templar_ , _though,_ said a panicked voice in the back of her head. She couldn't trust him, could she?_

She _wanted_ to trust him. What did that mean? She sighed loudly, ignoring the ache in her ribs. He was a templar, yes, but… he was also just a man. From the moment she learned of his past, she had kept the Commander at a safe distance, but Cullen? She couldn't give her trust freely, she had learned that the hard way, but she could give him the chance to earn it, as the others had. He deserved that right, his actions had more than shown that.

He was hesitating, having apparently picked up on her internal strife. She breathed out, and smiled encouragingly at him. The first genuine smile she'd ever given him.

"Very well… Alyx," he said in a low voice. He spoke her name as if it were a prayer, and smiled at her again as he turned away.

Yes. Maybe it was foolish, but she wanted desperately to trust him. She wanted to believe in the good in people again.

She wanted very much to have been wrong about him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm slowly working on turning this into a series of oneshots spanning the development of Alyx and Cullen's relationship. I probably won't write them in chronological order, but I'll arrange them that way so keep checking back... :)
> 
> On tumblr: broodywolf.tumblr.com


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